Former financial success director e-mails students
Published March 7, 2008
Following his Jan. 31 arrest on suspicion of stealing from MU, Mark D. Oleson has resigned his position as the Director of the Office for Financial Success, according to a March 2 e-mail sent by the MU Personal Financial Planning Department.
Many MU students might recognize Oleson’s name from their e-mail inboxes and his “Financial Tip of the Week” bulletin e-mails, in which Oleson gave personal financial planning advice targeted toward young people.
The e-mail announcing Oleson’s resignation asked those still interested in receiving the weekly tips to e-mail the Office for Financial Success directly to be put on a new listserv.
But another “Dr. Oleson’s Tip for Financial Success” e-mail appeared in their inboxes the next day, signed by Oleson, even if the subscriber did not send an e-mail requesting to continue receiving the tips.
“He’s sending those out under his own name,” said Robert Weagley, chairman of the MU Personal Financial Planning Department. “If you look at it, it says Dr. Oleson’s Financial Tip of the Week, as opposed to MU,” he said.
The differences between the two e-mails were subtle, but present, said Weagley.
“I believe that one of the ones that came out last week looked a lot like the tip had always looked,” Weagley said. “Like the one that came out of our office and had links to places on campus.”
Weagley said though he doesn’t see anything wrong with the information presented in Oleson’s version of the e-mails, the way Oleson published them troubles him.
“Now I don’t want to say anything discouraging about what’s in those comments,” Weagley said. “But I will say that I was disappointed when I saw the financial tip come out under his name looking like it belonged to our department.”
Oleson declined to comment about his resignation, asking instead that all questions be asked of his lawyer, whom he declined to name.
MU spokesman Christian Basi said Oleson and his case are no longer MU’s concern.
“Mark Oleson has resigned from the University of Missouri,” Basi said. “So, at this point, the case is in the hands of the police and the Boone County prosecutor.”
According to the Boone County Clerk’s Office, Oleson’s case has been put on hold pending further investigation to determine whether charges will be filed.
Weagley said the use of the list of subscribers to send his own financial tip e-mail, a list Oleson had at his disposal as Director of the Office for Financial Success, is a gray area.
“He’s an adult,” Weagley said. “He can make decisions, and he has to live with those decisions. And I think he is probably within his rights to set up a blog site and send e-mails to an existing list of people.”
Whether people wanted to receive the personal e-mail from Oleson is another matter, Weagley said.
“When people subscribed to that list, they perceived that list to be the ‘property of the university,’” Weagley said. “And that the information they were going to get was from the university. Now it’s from an individual. That would probably raise some questions in the eyes of the public.”
The Department of Financial Planning still plans to develop and send “tip of the week” e-mail independent of Oleson, but as for Oleson’s homegrown version, Weagley said he thinks subscribers can make their own judgments.
“People make the choices that they make,” Weagley said. “And one of the choices people can make is that they no longer want to receive it. They can always unsubscribe.”
Oleson was arrested on suspicion of stealing property and services more than $500 from MU.
